Best of - Sidney Poitier: Trailblazing Screen Legend

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Academy of Achievement

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4.6 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2022

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sidney Poitier changed America’s view of black men. And he changed Hollywood. The star of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” “The Defiant Ones,” and “In The Heat of the Night” became, in 1964, the first African-American to win an Academy Award (for “Lillies of the Field”). He was a leading man and box office sensation throughout the 1950’s and 60’s, portraying a huge array of characters with a dignity, courage and humanity that was radical for its time. Sidney Poitier died on Thursday, January 6th, at the age of 94. In his honor, we are reposting this episode from 2016. In it, Poitier talks about his remarkable life, and he describes how his childhood on a tiny island in the Bahamas made all the difference in his view of himself, and in the choices he made throughout his career as an actor. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2016-2022

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Alice.
0:03.0	Whenever I meet people who haven't heard this podcast before,
0:07.0	and they ask me which episode they should listen to first,
0:11.0	I almost always say, Sydney Poitier. Back in 2016 when I was working on it,
0:19.2	I so loved listening to the interview. I mean here was this iconic figure from my
0:25.0	childhood, a hero really as well as a brilliant actor and yet I discovered I
0:31.0	didn't know much about his personal story at all and what a remarkable story it is
0:37.9	told of course in that voice that voice well as I'm sure you've heard, Sidney Poitier died on Thursday, January 6th at the age of 94.
0:51.0	And so, please join me now in listening to Sydney Poitier's life story in his own words.
1:00.0	Adam, this child is gifted and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.
1:08.4	If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity and you don't take it you may never have another job.
1:14.8	It all was so clear it was just like the picture started to form itself.
1:19.4	There was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, birth over life.
1:27.0	Every day I wake up and decide, today I'm going to love my life.
1:32.0	Decide. Today I'm going to love my life.
1:32.7	Decide.
1:34.7	My advice is if they're going to break your leg once
1:37.4	when you go in that place, stay out of there.
1:39.7	And then along come these differential experiences that you don't look for, you don't plan for,
1:46.1	but boy you better not miss them. At the
1:57.0	at 1964 Academy Awards, actress Ann Bancroft presented one of the most coveted Oscars of the night.
2:02.0	The nominees for the best performance by an actor are Albert Finney in Tom Jones.
	...

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